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Flexible Seating: First Day Tips!

I wanted to take a moment and tell you exactly what I did on day one to make my flexible seating experience turn out so well! It is ALL about how you prep the kids! You MUST make sure you know exactly how you are going to introduce the kids to this new seating, especially if they are expecting your class to be a certain way. (To see my classroom tour click HERE)

When the students come in I made sure I had all the seating options put up into our loft. I had them knee around a desk or table and then we came back to the carpet fairly quickly. I began by introducing myself and asking them if they noticed anything different about our classroom! They responded with things like “where are the chairs?” or “there’s no desks in here!” I then was able to then talk about how I REALLY wanted to do something awesome for them and give them a great gift! We talked about what we do when someone gives us a gift and I prefaced flexible seating with the idea that I was giving them this awesome gift!

We spent about half of our day kneeling down not using the chairs and I let the excitement build right up!

After lunch I sat them all at our carpet I slowly brought out each chair and I demonstrated each one. The rules for the chairs are simple: feet on the floor at all times!

If the students fall off the chair then they lose it for one month. That may sound a bit harsh but after one month I am so glad I did it! It has given them a sense of time, it has made them try their absolute best and it has worked wonders.

Each child got the opportunity to try out EACH chair so that we both knew that they knew and understood HOW to sit on the chairs. They did such an awesome job that we put the chairs out for the rest of the day and they were all SO excited!

I repeated a similar process for the new consecutive days because I wanted them to understand that having these seats is a real privilege and that if we use them right we can have an awesome year!